


Nothing to Forgive

by Once_More_With_Feeling



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Broken Friendships, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post suicide attempt, Regret, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23230360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Once_More_With_Feeling/pseuds/Once_More_With_Feeling
Summary: The chances that Sarah O’Brien would ever return to Downton Abbey are nil, especially to see Thomas after his suicide attempt. But if she did…
Relationships: Thomas Barrow & Phyllis Baxter, Thomas Barrow & Sarah O'Brien
Comments: 17
Kudos: 84





	Nothing to Forgive

Mrs. Hughes knows about the letter.

That is, she knows about the request that it be written. She has to admit that she has not been certain, until this morning, that it was, in fact, written. Or posted, for that matter. 

But opening the back door, after its bell rings soon after breakfast, puts any uncertainty to rest.

“I received a—” the visitor begins. Then she seems unable to finish, and draws her mouth into a tight frown, waiting silently for the housekeeper to take her meaning. 

Mrs. Hughes sighs. A visit such as this can only mean one thing—this week, at least.

“You’d better come in,” she says, and stands aside so Miss O’Brien can step inside.

***

She hands over her coat, but keeps her hat on. Then she looks at her former superior. “Where—?” she begins again, but does not finish. Why is she suddenly so incapable of completing a sentence?

Mrs. Hughes clearly holds back another sigh. “He’s upstairs, in bed,” she says quietly, with a softness clearly meant more for Thomas than for his visitor. “I’ll take you up to his room, and make certain he’s ready to see you before you go in.” She pauses a moment. “Unless—did he expect you this morning?”

Miss O’Brien swallows hard. “No,” she whispers, then clears her throat. “She—” she stammers. “She only asked that I come. I came as soon as I was able.”

Mrs. Hughes actually smiles a little. “Well,” she says, and after another pause, “That was kind.” Then she turns sharply, and leads the way up to the attic.

***

Mrs. Hughes knocks on his door, waits a moment, and then enters. Sarah is unsure at first if she should follow, or wait for an invitation. She decides on the latter, and lingers in the corridor. After another moment, the housekeeper steps out of the room, and holds the door open for her. She gestures inside. “Alright,” she says. “You can go in.”

Miss O’Brien nods. She sniffs, as though that will somehow keep her tears behind her eyes, where they belong. When it does not, she turns away from the housekeeper, and steps into the room.

She has no clear memory of the last time she saw him—she had snuck out in the middle of the night, without telling anyone, least of all him. But she sees instantly that he is a shell of the man she had known all those years ago. The man she had schemed and plotted with. The man she had ultimately betrayed.

He is lying on his back in his bed, two pillows with crisp white cases under his head and shoulders. She can see in his face that he is thinner than he was. His face is pale, too, his cheeks nearly translucent. Fine grey lines creep out from his eyes to his temples, like tiny, swampy little river deltas, that disappear into his now silvering hair. His lips are nearly white.

His blankets are pulled up to his chest, but his arms are uncovered, and she can see white bandages on each of his wrists, peeking out from the cuffs of his pajamas. A petite woman with dark hair sits in a chair next to him, and holds his right hand in both of hers. When Sarah enters the room, the woman looks up at her, and her bright brown eyes widen. She looks back at Thomas, hesitates a moment, and then stands. She seems entirely lost for words, so Miss O’Brien offers tersely, “You’ll be Miss Baxter, then.”

Miss Baxter nods silently. Then she seems to find her tongue. “And you must be Miss O’Brien.”

Miss O’Brien does not confirm or deny the accusation. Something begins to burn inside her, begging her to lash out at this woman—her replacement—for anything she can reach. For taking her place, for staying as long as she has, for meeting Her Ladyship’s needs, day in and day out, when she herself never could. For not watching out for Thomas when he needed it, for not knowing him as well as she herself had, years ago. For letting this happen. 

But logic dictates that if she lashes out, she will then have to look inward, at herself, and her own failings. And she cannot stand the thought of her own hatred right now. So she takes a moment to quell the burning in her chest, and then says calmly, “Thank you for your letter.”

Miss Baxter looks somehow more taken aback than she did when Sarah first entered the room. She shakes her head a little, as if searching for an answer. “Mr. Barrow asked me to write to you,” she says, her voice nearly a whisper. 

“So you said,” Sarah returns. Then she takes a breath. “Thank you,” she repeats, hoping some semblance of kindness comes off in her curt words. 

Miss Baxter nods, though she still seems completely baffled. “I…” she begins. “Won’t you sit down?” she asks, then turns away from the bed. “I’ll find you a chair…”

Before she can move toward the desk, Thomas reaches up and takes her hand. “Phyl,” he whispers. 

“Yes?” she asks, leaning down toward him a bit, her eyes filled with concern.

He gives her a tiny smile, one Miss O’Brien hasn’t seen in years. “It’s alright,” he says, still holding on to her hand. “I need to speak with Miss O’Brien. You can go—I’m alright, really. Go down and have a cup of tea if you want.”

Miss Baxter straightens up. “Are you certain?” she asks. Thomas nods, and lets go of her hand. “Alright,” she whispers, then turns to the visitor. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss O’Brien,” she says formally, with a nod of her head.

Sarah cannot imagine returning such a dishonest statement, so she says nothing, and waits for Miss Baxter to leave the room, and close the door behind her. “I doubt she’ll be going anywhere for any tea,” she mutters, more to the door than to Thomas. “She’s probably standing out there with her ear to the door.”

“Don’t say that about her,” Thomas says, his words sharper than he appears capable of. 

Sarah turns to him. Right. His new best friend. Probably won’t do to openly insult the woman. She takes a seat in the chair Miss Baxter had previously occupied, and begins again.

“You look awful,” she says plainly. 

This, apparently, is more along the lines of what Thomas was expecting. He rolls his eyes and answers, “Thank you. So do you.”

Then he struggles to sit up a bit further in his bed, wincing at the pressure on his wrists against the mattress. A part of her longs to reach out and help him, to lift him up and rearrange his pillows for him, to smooth his blankets and keep him warm. But that was never how it was between them, so she resists.

Once he is settled, not more than an inch higher than he was, he says, without looking in her direction, “You came very quickly.”

She can’t resist. “I only live a few miles off, you noodle. You must’ve known that; you found my address.”

“Phyllis found it,” he corrects her softly. 

_Phyllis_. He has never called her Sarah. Not once.

“What happened to India?” he asks.

She scoffs. “India happened,” she says to her lap. “Now it’s done. And I’m back here.” He does not ask what kind of work she is doing now, and she does not offer to tell him. She aims to relax her posture just a bit, and tries for gentleness in her voice when she speaks next. “Did the doctor say you’d pull through, then?” she asks softly.

He looks directly at her for the first time since she arrived. “Yeah,” he answers, his eyes hollow. “Should make a full recovery,” he continues flatly.

She continues to look down, and nods slightly. She knows she oughtn’t tell him what to do, or how to do it, but… “Don’t rush it,” she murmurs. Then she forces herself to look at him again. Before he can tell her to mind her own business, that she has no idea about such things, she continues. “You take as much time as you need. It takes time to recover from something like this. You just get your rest, and…”

She is sure he is going to snap at her again, to remind her that he does not have the luxury of taking all the time he needs, that what he needs to do is work, to pay his own way. But he does not. He swallows, and looks up at the ceiling, and nods. She looks away.

After a moment, he begins, “Miss O’Brien?” 

“Yes?” she answers, leaning toward him just a little.

He does not look at her. “I’m sorry,” he says softly.

Now she leans back. “For what?” she demands, aghast.

He turns to her, and if she isn’t mistaken, he looks a little confused. “For… whatever it was that I did. That made you turn on me. Not _because_ you turned on me, but…” now he returns his gaze to the ceiling. “But because… I’m realizing now that I’m sorry for a lot of the things I did. And I thought you ought to know that.”

There is no point in telling him it was about Alfred, and Thomas’ unwillingness to help her nephew move up in service. It wasn’t. But until this moment, she had never thought that she had turned on him. He had left her, abandoned their friendship, when she had needed kindness and forgiveness. And so she had punished him. And he should have known there was no limit to what she would do to destroy someone who had hurt her. He was the only person in this world who knew what she had done to Lady Grantham—who, at the time, Sarah had loved above anyone else on earth. Didn’t he know what she was capable of? Didn’t he expect to be destroyed completely for crossing her?

Apparently not. 

She looks at him now, terrified that he will look back. But she presses on, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her back stiff and straight. “Thomas,” she whispers. “I…” but she cannot bear to tell him that she forgives him. There is nothing to forgive. She swallows, and carries on. “I’m sorry, too. You trusted me, and I… I went too far. I shouldn’t have tried to ruin you like that.”

Now he looks at her again, and she is surprised to find that the earlier emptiness in his eyes is now filled with just bit of light. His blue eyes shine a little, like they used to, and he lifts one corner of his mouth. He does not offer express forgiveness either, but whispers, “Truce, then?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s about five years past due, but yes, I suppose so.”

He gives a tiny, mirthless little laugh, and looks up and away from her again. “Will we be seeing you around here sometimes, then?” he asks.

She scoffs again. “Not likely,” she answers. “I can’t think what Lady Grantham would say if she knew I was in her house right now.”

Thomas turns to her, but does not ask for further clarification. He merely raises his eyebrows, then lifts a corner of his mouth again. Perhaps the illicit nature of her visit today has brought him the tiniest bit of happiness. After a moment, he closes his eyes. 

She has never seen him look so tired. Not even all those years ago, during… Well. All she had put him through. She had pushed him to the absolute end of his rope, and even then… She shakes herself, and then spends a moment just looking at him. It is easier, now that he is not looking back at her. She wishes in that moment that she could be like his Miss Baxter—someone who gives love so effortlessly and constantly. Love that is wanted, and easily returned. She knows she was never the mother he wished he had, or the sister he always wanted. If they had both been better people back then, maybe she would have been. 

But they weren’t, and so she wasn’t.

Perhaps they are both a little better now, though. Not people who usually do good things, but people who say they are sorry when they do not. 

“I’d best be going,” she whispers to him after a few minutes of silence. She is not entirely sure he has heard her; he may be asleep.

But he opens his eyes, and nods in her direction. After several moments’ hesitation, she leans forward in her chair, and places an awkward and flattened hand on his chest. She draws in a breath, and says very quietly, “Take whatever second chances you can get, Thomas. Most of us don’t get them at all.”

He sniffs, and a tear falls from his eye down to his pillow. She wonders if she should brush it away, but then thinks acknowledging it that way might insult him somehow. So she stands, and swallows, and says, “Thank you for inviting me here today. I do hope you feel better soon.”

Before he can answer, she walks to the door and opens it. She was incorrect in her guess that Miss Baxter would be standing there listening, but she was right in thinking that she wouldn’t have gone anywhere. She stands leaning against the wall opposite his door, and looks up when it opens. Then she moves silently past Thomas’ visitor, and back into his room. Miss O’Brien stands in the threshold and watches her approach his bed, lean over him, and pull his blankets up over his bandaged hands, covering him to his chin. Then she lays her hand on his forehead, as if checking his temperature. As if Sarah’s presence may have harmed him somehow. Thomas just lies there, and lets her. 

Once Miss Baxter is satisfied with his condition, she turns back to the doorway, perhaps to say goodbye. But by the time she does, Miss O’Brien has gone. 

***

She makes her way silently down all the stairs, grateful not to bump into any of the servants. She lands at the bottom of the steps, unsure if she should see herself out. She certainly doesn’t wish to pop into the kitchen or servants’ hall for a little visit with any of them. Luckily Mrs. Hughes is passing through, and greets her politely. 

“Did you have a nice visit?” she asks. 

Nice isn’t exactly the word she would use, but she nods. “It was good to see him again,” she says. “Though of course I am sorry for all of his trouble.”

Mrs. Hughes gives her a tight smile, and they walk to the coat rack. Once she has put on her coat and buttoned up, she says to the housekeeper, “Thank you for letting me see him today. There’s quite a few in your position who wouldn’t have let me in the door.”

Mrs. Hughes keeps her expression even, and answers, “Mr. Barrow wanted to see you. And whatever he wants is what we want for him.”

Miss O’Brien looks at her shoes for a minute. A tear falls from her eye, and she says softly in return, “It may surprise you, Mrs. Hughes, but I feel the same way.”

Now the housekeeper smiles more fully, and they walk to the back door. Mrs. Hughes opens it for her, and says, “I may just believe you, Miss O’Brien. I may just.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never written O’Brien before. She’s definitely a very interesting character, but in terms of the stuff I like to write about Thomas, she seemed to me until recently to just be another part of his sad past—she hurt him, and then left. He doesn’t miss her.
> 
> But I recently binge-watched The Stranger on Netflix (really great British crime drama series, with Siobhan Finneran, as well as Richard Armitage). Siobhan plays a modern woman, obviously a very different character from Miss O’Brien. But I was struck by how subtly she plays her character’s loneliness; she just had such sad eyes, and an otherwise completely confident disposition. And that reminded me of Miss O’Brien… as I started to think more about her, I started to also think about the huge IF, of what would have happened if she came back to the abbey to visit Thomas soon after his suicide attempt. It wasn’t something that previously would have interested me, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to write it. This led me to wonder what would have happened if Miss O’Brien and Miss Baxter actually met, especially in this context (awk…ward…). 
> 
> Exploring where Miss O’Brien might be at in her life at this point, after leaving the abbey so many years ago, gave me a little chance to write something I hadn’t before. I hope you all enjoy this one!


End file.
